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Osbert
Guy Stanhope Crawford (1886 – 1957) was a field
archaeologist who pioneered aerial photography after seeing
its potential in the First World War. He was the first Archaeology
Officer at the Ordnance Survey in Southampton, and lived for
most of his life in Nursling, just outside the city, where he
is buried. He was an influential and visionary figure in the
history of archaeology in this country. This exhibition, ranging
from images of archaeological sites, anti-Nazi graffiti in Berlin
between the wars and advertising hoardings, to images of suburban
developments in his home city, is based on Crawford’s
extraordinary archive of photographs, mostly taken by himself
and never before shown.
Distance, in Crawford’s view, brought
clarity; and he saw world history – and the future –
in the broadest possible perspective, perceiving patterns in
times past and in things to come. The passage of time, from
prehistory to a utopian future, could be charted (and photographed);
it was evident in the design of ploughs, for instance, in the
rise and fall of superstitions, in the organization of domestic
space.
Since the 1960s the process of collecting, categorising and
archiving images and objects has underpinned the approach of
many artists, to which Crawford’s photographic
practice bears a striking relationship. Crawford
was himself an expert photographer, emerging at the same time
as well-known modernist photographers like Walker Evans, the
German New Objectivity photographers, and in this country, Neo-Romantic
artists like Paul Nash and John Piper.
Yet in Crawford’s opinion there was
no time for art, when there was so much to be discovered by
science; and when evolution was speeding up towards the bright
socialist future he perceived in Soviet Russia. His political
faith did not last and the preparations he took for a Brave
New World turned out to be redundant. But this diverse and affecting
archive remains the evidence of his vision.
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| Images courtesy Institute
of Archaeology, University of Oxford. |
| O.G.S. Crawford
is a John Hansard Gallery exhibition
curated by Kitty Hauser, Research Fellow,
University of Sydney and author of Bloody Old Britain:
O.G.S. Crawford And The Archaeology Of Modern Life,
(Granta, 2008), and Ewen McDonald, previously
Acting Head of Programmes, Museum of Contemporary Art,
Sydney |
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